First-class Rustam Orujov delights the home with gold at Grand Slam

World number five Rustam ORUJOV (AZE) won Azerbaijan’s second gold medal of their home event in a tactical final against Olympic bronze medallist SAINJARGAL Nyam-Ochir (MGL) who appears to have rediscovered his best form. SAINJARGAL, who has returned empty handed from his three Grand Prix outings in 2015, was defeated by Azerbaijan’s man of the moment and top seed ORUJOV, who won the Tbilisi and Samsun Grand Prix in March, on shido penalties today.

A shido for SAINJARGAL was cheered by the fanatic home supporters before both men were penalised for passivity. Both men were penalised again for passivity and ORUJOV had done enough to win having thrilled his compatriots with four ippons in his four previous contests. The crowd chanted his name as he left the tatami having conquered the number two seed.     

ORUJOV said: “I am very happy to win gold at the Grand Slam in Baku. This is my home, I have my family and friends here in the crowd and they gave me strength today. I am sharing a room with our first gold medallist SHIKHALIZADA and I said that I would be the second gold medallist so now we’re really happy.

“I needed to be more tactical in the final because I felt SAINJARGAL was strong and it worked for me. I am now concentrating on the World Judo Masters and the European Games which I am very excited about.”

In the first semi-final ORUJOV saw off Olympic bronze medallist UNGVARI Miklos (HUN) will a blistering performance. ORUJOV threw for waza-ari and held down his opponent initially with mune-gatame but kept the hold the 15 seconds to win by wazari-awasette-ippon. In the second semi-final SAINJARGAL defeated Hannover-based Igor WANDTKE (GER) who was a surprise contender in the -73kg category. SAINJARGAL was in control for large parts of the contest as one-time Grand Prix winner WANDTKE (Qingdao 2013) was penalised twice while the record of his opponent was unblemished. 

The first bronze medal was clinched by Tashkent Grand Prix bronze medallist Zelimkhan OZDOEV (RUS) as WANDTKE was beaten for a second time. WANDTKE was penalised for a false attack and was caught with an okuri-ashi-barai as the Russian swept both legs of his adversary who outperformed his modest expectations on day two. The second bronze medal was won by UNGVARI against former Jeju Grand Prix winner Serhiy DREBOT (UKR). The Hungarian scored a yuko with a sumi-gaeshi and added a waza-ari from a ko-uchi-gari. UNGVARI was still not content as he countered an uchi-mata for a second waza-ari as DREBOT never committed to the technique.